Brief by Central Staff
Cartography – December 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Don’t believe everything you find to read in a motel room.
We’re not talking about those Gideon Bibles, but about a slick full-color 64-page tourist guide called Western Colorado: The Spirit of Adventure, which we found in a Gunnison motel room last summer.
Since it’s for “Western Colorado,” we can understand why the map might omit the names of Central Colorado spots on the eastern slope like Leadville, Salida, an
Reading the brochure provides all manner of amazing information, though. For instance, Crested Butte is “within an hour’s drive” of Montrose. But the highway distance is about 96 miles, and covering that in an hour would probably attract the attention of the state highway patrol.
And of Cortez, we learn that it’s an “old railroad community.” No railroad ever ran through Cortez, however. The closest was the Rio Grande Southern at Dolores, and that’s 11 miles away. Perhaps the Anasazi had a railroad we hadn’t heard about.
